Contemporary Verse Dramatists

19th Century

With some additions from the 18th Century

18th Century

20th Century

21st Century

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Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

• The Strayed Reveller (1849)
• Fragments of an "Antigone" (Date Unknown)
• The Sick King in Bokhara (1849)
• Empedocles on Etna (1852)
• Tristram and Iseult (1852)
  
• Merope: A Tragedy (1858)

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

• Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession (1833)
• Paracelsus (1835)
• Strafford: An Historical Tragedy (1837)
• King Victor and King Charles (1839)
• Pippa Passes (1841)
• Bells and Pomengranates No. III: Dramatic Lyrics (1842) - Dramatic Poems including "Porphyria's Lover," "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister," "My Last Duchess," "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," "Count Gismond," and "Johannes Agricola in Meditation"
• The Return of the Druses (1843)
• A Blot in the 'Schutcheon (1843)
• Colombe's Birthday (1844)
• A Soul's Tragedy (1845)
• Luria (1846)
• In a Balcony (1853)
• Dramatis Personae (1864) - Dramatic Poems including "Caliban upon Setebos," "Rabbi Ben Ezra," "Abt Vogler," "Mr. Sludge, 'The Medium,'" "Prospice," and "A Death in the Desert"
• Agamemnon (1877), translation of Aeschylus.  A copy of Browning's translation is a key factor in Terrence Rattigan's The Browning Version.
• Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their Day (1886), Apollo and the Fates, and Fust and His Friends: An Epilogue
• Asolando: Fancies and Facts (1889) Arcades Ambo
• The Lady and the Painter (1889)
  

Lord Byron (1788-1824)

UNHINGED RANT: Laughing at Lord Byron

• Manfred (1817)
• Marino Faliero (1820)
• Cain (1821)
• Heaven and Earth (1821)
  
• Sardanapalus (1821)
• The Two Foscari (1821)
• Werner (1822)
  
• The Deformed Transformed: A Drama (1822)
  

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)

• Dipsychus, Part I, Part 2 (1850)
• Dipsychus Continued, A Fragment (Published 1869)
• Fragments of the Mystery of the Fall (Date Unknown, Published 1869)
  
• Amours de Voyage (Date Unknown, Published 1869 - Epistolary Dramatic Verse)
  

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

• The Fall of Robespierre, with Robert Southey (1794)
  
• The Piccolomini, or The First Part of the Wallenstein, A Drama, Translated from the German of Schiller (1800)
• The Death of Wallenstein, A Tragedy in Five Acts (Translated from Schiller, 1800)
• Osorio (1797), retitled and performed as Remorse (1813)
• Zapolya, A Christmas Tale in Two Parts (1815)
  

Richard Hovey  (1864-1900)

• The Marriage of Guenevere: A Tragedy (1891)
• The Quest of Merlin (1891)
• Pélléas and Mélisande, translator (1896, pub. 1911), from Maurice Maeterlinck
  
• Alladine and Palomides, translator (pub. 1911), from Maurice Maeterlinck
  
• The Birth of Galahad (1898)
• Taliesin: A Masque (1900)
  

Works of Richard Hovey at Internet Archive

James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862)

• Leo; or, The Gipsy (1810)
  
• Brian Boroihme; or, The Maid of Erin (1811)[8]
• Caius Gracchus (1815)[9]
• Virginius (1820) A Tragedy in Five Acts[10]
• William Tell (1825)[11]
• The Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green (1828)[12]
• Alfred the Great; or The Patriot King (1831)[11]
• The Hunchback (1832)[13]
• A Masque (in one act and in verse on the death of Sir Walter Scott) (1832)[7]
• The Wife; A Tale of Mantua (1833)[11]
• The Beggar of Bethnal Green (1834)[11]
• The Bridal (1837) (An adaptation of The Maid's Tragedy)[7]
• The Daughter (1837)[11]
• The Love Chase (1837)[14]
• Woman's Wit (1838)[15]
• The Maid of Mariendorpt (1838)[16]
• Love (1839)[17]
• John of Procida; or, The Bridals of Messina (1840)[18]
• Old Maids (1841)[19]
• The Rose of Arragon (1842)[20]
  
• The Secretary (1843)[21]
• Alexina; or, True unto Death (1866)[22]

Held up as a model of "stodgy, melodramatic" verse drama, in direct opposition to rising "naturalistic" forces such as T. W. Robertson (1829-1871).  See book.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834)

• John Woodville: A Tragedy (1802), in verse
  
• Mr H (1807), likely in paragraph?
• Tales from Shakespeare (1807), with his sister, Mary Lamb, prose retellings of Shakespeare's plays, edited for children

His mother's tragic death at the hands of his sister, Mary, is the basis for the poetic drama The Coast of Illyria: A Play in Three Acts by Dorothy Parker and Ross Evans (1949)

Rev. Carles (C. R.) Maturin (1780-1824)

• Bertram; or The Castle of St. Aldobrand (1816)
• Manuel; A Tragedy, in Five Acts: As Performed at The Theatre Royal, Drury-Lane (1817)
• Fredolfo, A Tragedy in Five Acts (1819)
  
• Osmyn the Renegade (fragments published posthumously in 1830, but in rehearsal at Covent Garden in 1822)
  

James Planché (1796-1880)

• Full theatrical bibliography
  
• Oberon (1826) his libretto was replaced by a new libretto by Anthony Burgess (1985), while compositions by Carl Maria von Weber remain
  

Over a period of approximately 60 years he wrote, adapted, or collaborated on 176 plays in a wide range of genres including extravaganza, farce, comedy, burletta, melodrama and opera. Planché was responsible for introducing historically accurate costume into nineteenth century British theatre, and subsequently became an acknowledged expert on historical costume, publishing a number of works on the topic.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

• The Cenci. A Tragedy, in Five Acts (1819)
• Prometheus Unbound, A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts (1820)
• Oedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts (1820)
• Hellas, A Lyrical Drama (1821)
  
• Faust, Part One, Scene II (Translated from Goethe, 1822)
  

Robert Southey (1774-1843)

• The Fall of Robespierre, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1794)
• Wat Tyler: A Dramatic Poem in Three Acts (1817)
  

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

• Rosamond (1860)
• The Queen Mother (1860)
• Atalanta in Calydon (1865)
• Chastelard: Play One of Mary Queen of Scots Trilogy (1865)
• Bothwell: Play Two of Mary Queen of Scots Trilogy (1874)
  
• Erechtheus (1876)
  
• Mary Stuart: Play Three of Mary Queen of Scots Trilogy (1881)
• Marino Faliero (1885)
  
• Locrine (1887)
  
• The Sisters (1895)
  
• Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards (1899)
  
• Verse Drama Essays in The Contemporaries of Shakespeare and The Age of Shakespeare
• Books on Shakespeare and Jonson

See also:

Timeline of Arthurian Verse Drama

• 1801: The Fairy of the Lake, John Thelwall
  

• 1805-1810: Tom Thumb the Great: A Burlesque Tragedy from Fielding, Kane O’Hara Esq. (adapted from Fielding)
  

• 1827: Merlin: A Drama in Three Acts, Lambert A. Wilmer
  

• 1829 (circa): Fragments of the Masque of Gwendolen, Reginald Heber
  

• 1843: Launcelot of the Lake: A Tragedy, in Five Acts, C. J. Riethmüller  
  

• 1868: King Arthur: Or, Launcelot the Loose, Gin-Ever the Square and the Knights of the Round Table, and Other Furniture. A Burlesque Extravaganza, W. M. Akhurst
  

• 1871: King Arthur: or, The Knights of the Round Table, and other funny-ture.  A Burlesque Extravaganza, W. M. Akhurst
  

• 1884: Time and the Witch Vivian, William Butler Yeats
  

• 1885: The New King Arthur: An Opera Without Music, Edgar Fawcett
  

• 1889: Merlin, John Veitch

• 1893: Excalibur: An Arthurian Drama, Ralph Adams Cram
  

• 1895: Mordred: A Tragedy in Five Acts, founded on the Arthurian Relation of Sir Thomas Mallory, Wilfred Campbell
  

• 1895: Mordred: A Tragedy, Henry Newbolt